Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x10 - "The Red Angel"

Another little niggling issue from the first half of the episode (which I didn't like): they just casually mention they destroyed the Section 31 station off camera. Why the hell didn't they do that onscreen? I can understand not doing it last episode, because it would have ruined the ending, but they could have worked it into the opening act this episode, right before the funeral scene started.

 

Burnham says in 'Will you take my hand' that the Klingons Killed her father pretty quickly, but 'took their time' with her mother if I remember correctly. I wonder if there was maybe some temporal or multiple reality shenanigans where Burnham's mother brought a version of herself from another point in time or space to fake her own death?

 

Is the woman who took Airiam's place the original actor who played her?

 

Yessah

 

Whoopsie! Maybe this was a mulligan under the circumstances.

 

Well, if the intention was to capture the Red Angel, I think Spock followed the spirit of Pike’s order. That, and Pike didn’t use the magic words “direct order.”

At least that’s what I’d argue at the court martial. If Spock doesn’t waive counsel. Or enter a guilty plea.

 

It looks like those spike things punctured his eyeballs and went inside his brain. 99% chance that he's dead.

 

When this episode began, I thought the showrunners were going to be eviscerated forevermore for taking the lazy simple storytelling route. But, color me impressed.

Wow, you must be fun at parties.

 

The ending of this episode is the Alias Mom reveal like in the season 1 finale of Alias. I've seen this on other shows in the years since Alias aired.

 

Gave it 8/10. I agree with @Mr Awe that they fell back on too much exposition at the start, but it was a "wrap some stuff up" kind of episode. They do have a penchant for solving one mystery and moving right into another, too.

SPOILER BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE YET:








WARNED: GO NO FURTHER IF YOUR EYES HAVE BEEN UNSULLIED BY THE EPISODE:












The interesting thing is the trap didn't catch who it was set out to capture. That means the reason for the appearance of the Red Angel and the reason for its capture must be different. So, the motivation of the Red Angel must be different. This was not future self saving past self to preserve a necessary future as the crew anticipated was what would happen.

 

So, Control clipped Leland, mimicked his voice and gave the S31 ship enough power to close the wormhole. Could this plan have been manipulated into existence by Control to get RA out of the way? I get the feeling that, by doing what they did, they played right into Control’s hands, removing the move-anywhere-at-anytime Queen (RA) from the board. I don’t see this episode as a victory for the humans.

Awesome move to make RA Burnham’s mom. During the episode, the temporal flaw kept nagging at me, and someone else here mentioned it earlier: if Burnham was in fact RA, she would have known that her crew members were standing by to save her. She never would have shown up, since she was necessarily ever in any danger. RA being her mom, however, was a perfect fix to that flaw. She correctly never would have known about the plan.

In taking this path though, it introduced another flaw to perpetuate the red herring. They said that it was Burnham’s “bio-neural signature”, implying that it HAD to be Burnham. Since now we know it wasn’t, how was everyone so wrong? Was Control also cloned in Disco’s computer or did they do the examination on the S31 ship? Was it secretly monitoring everything and providing falsified information (realistic enough to fool Culber), steering them to the ultimate goal of capturing RA, including convincing them that RA was Michael?

I hope this is explained sufficiently in upcoming episodes, otherwise it would be quite a contrived plot hole. Regardless, though, a very solid episode. Gave it a 9 - would have been a 10 if not for the strange “bio-neural signature” business.

 

An 8 from me. Very well done.
Hmm, why do Burnham's neural patterns match her mom's?

Kor

 

Spoilers man. I might have watched that show one day.

 

This one gets a 7/10 from me; and IMO, it's one of the weaker episodes of the Season (IMO). I will say that up until the reveal of the Red Angel I was honestly going to give it a 3; but and since it IS a full 14 episode story and is still only 2/3rd finished, maybe once in context I'll be less disappointed about some aspects of this episode.

Liked:
- What they're doing with the Stamets/Culber subplot and I did like the scene between Culber and the Admiral

- That at the end the Red Angel turns out to be Burnham's mother.

- That they stated Klingons were experimenting with Time Travel (In TOS they also had the 'Mind Scanner' only ever mentioned/used in TOS S1 - "Errand Of Mercy"); but I like they have Klingons thinking of things 'out of the norm'; and they're not all just 'Honor Spouting, Knuckle-Dragging Warriors' with nothing but straight up combat on their minds.

Dissapointed:
- That there is such a thing as a 'Time Crystal' or that Section 31 isn't itself horrified that there must be some races out there with (and using) Time Travel tech. Hell, the Time manipulation tech Harry Mudd was able to get and use in that regard in ST: D's S1 "Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad" should have BOTH the Feds and Klingons crapping their pants. I guess I just don't like it's a McGuffin that they can't produce themselves and hell that there's a 'Black Market' with the tech readily available.

- That the initial Red Angel reveal that it's Micheal Burnhan.

- That Spock and Burnham have made up. Why? Given that Spock could find it within himself to forgive (and understand) why Burnham did and acted as she did; I just find it hard to believe that overall Spock couldn't forgive his own Father Sarek and as stated in TNG S5 - "Unification II" they never chose to Mind Meld and both still harbored some resentment. Given that I would rather see Spock with the understandable flaw that he couldn't forgive either of them. (Again, it was a nice scene, it just seemed a little pat that they have Spock and Burnham 'make up' at this point.

- The (IMO) sudden and uncharacteristic 'softening' of Empress Georgiou. Yeah, I know that for her to work as a lead character for their "Section 31" series, they need to humanize and redeem her to a point, but the degree they did here in this one episode seemed too much, too soon. (And if it turns out Empress Georgiou is manipulating Burnham here and that becomes evident at some point over the last 4 episodes, I will change my mind here on this disappointment.

- That they were so certain this would work to 'draw' the Red Angel out; as if it were Michael, one would think 'Future Michael' would have remembered this particular incident and found a way around it; since again as they said, the Red Angel didn't appear in every instance.

- The way they had Spock disobey Pike here. IDK - again it just seemed really pat, and very old school over the top 'Saturday Morning Serial'-ish. <--- And not it a good way.

- That we again have an 'Evil A.I." infiltration that got past everyone a second time. (And if that's a red-herring and we find perhaps Empress Gergiou finally assassinated Leland - I'll end up cheering in the end; BUT as that scene played out, it seems 'Control' has a Section 31 ship at it's disposal now.

WTF:
- This is just a personal hope that the writers do explain HOW Burnham's mother is able to view/know events in the timeline (Yes, she has a suit; but how is she able to scan our timeline to 'see' events she needs to intervene?

I know I often say I don't like things 'spelled out' but IMO if the writers don't explain SOME of the more 'WTF" stuff (like WHY and HOW Burnham's mother went back 200 or so years to save a Church full of people from a Nuclear bomb and HOW she managed to transport all those people and the church to a Planet that would take 150 years at Warp 7 to reach - PLUS how she knew said planet would be inhabitable.

IDK after reading the above, maybe I'm still giving this episode a 'benefit of the doubt' with a 7/0 because I really enjoyed the previous three episodes prior to this one - and HOPE the staff does have a story/plan that makes sense of some of the more WTF stuff.

Compared to what they did with the previous 3 episodes, for me this one was rather mediocre and overly 'trope' filled.

Still, I definitely want to see what they do with their last 4 episodes of ST: D Season 2 here and how they wrap this storyline up.

 

I'm not rating this episode for awhile, if ever. The jumps in engagement and quality are jarring, and I honestly don't think I can give it a fair rating.

*DSC

 

A 9. Enjoyed thoroughly.

2x010 thoughts/things noticed

- Airiam coffin shot into space
- Red Angel is Michael. Kinda disappointing tbh.
- "time crystal"
- Some of the subtle musical tones remind me of BSG
- Am finally starting to like this Spock
- Amazing digital effects as always.
- Impressed by the reveal the Red Angel is Burnham's mom.

 

Looks like Michael is her own mother. Similar to how Philip J Fry is his own grandfather

 

let people use any abbreviation they want.

 

Now she has three mother figures running around the nearby universe, two of them on the same ship. It's a nightmare.